When You Feel You Don’t Deserve Your Partner
Dating imposter syndrome is real and it sucks.
My partner and I have been together for 4 years now. We’re in a great place in our relationship where I feel an immense amount of gratitude for having him by my side. I feel completely secure and just really happy.
This is new though. Really new. When things started to get serious, like move-across-the-country-to-be-with-me-because-I-got-a-job-somewhere-else serious, that was when I started having a bit of a meltdown. The act of making the move was hard enough but how incredible he was when he got there didn’t make it easier. I’d come home from work with dinner on the table, a glass of wine handed to me, and smooth R&B playing in the background. It was like a movie and I couldn’t deal.
I started thinking to myself, “Oh shit. He really thinks I’m like a good, hardworking girlfriend who deserves this treatment. How do I keep up this facade?” I started scouring my mind trying to figure out what the hell he saw in me. What was he gonna do when he found out I’m actually insane? When is he going to get tired of waking up to my puffy ass face? I wish I was exaggerating but I’m not. In fact, the stress of trying to somehow prove my worth to him triggered my first ever eczema outbreak. I’d never been so anxious in my life.
My partner noticed the change in my mood and behavior and was at a loss for what to do. In his mind, his romantic gestures and thoughtfulness shouldn’t have caused such a reaction. It wasn’t new. We were just in a new apartment in a new city and he wasn’t wrong either. This was classic him.
The fact is, it was the gesture of his moving with me that was causing me such distress. He’s an artist and he had his own studio practice back home, all his friends and family were back home, he had a life. I felt like he made such a huge sacrifice in making the move and that the burden fell on me to make him feel like it wasn’t a mistake.
From his point of view, the move wasn’t a sacrifice. It was just a step forward. What else was he going to do? He knew he wanted to be with me, not away from me so he’d move with me. Simple!
There was no convincing me that any of this was simple. We had countless conversations but in the end, it was something I needed to work out with myself.
Working on building self-confidence.
I’ve always had low self-esteem and because I also have siblings with self-esteem issues, who berated me for having self-esteem issues, I felt like I had to keep my thoughts to myself. In other words, we all had insecurities but all thought so highly of one another that it became a competition of who really had it the worst. Eventually, we all just kept our mouths shut and suffered in silence.
In a way, I guess this made me come off as a confident person somehow. I have self-deprecating humor that can be perceived as charming. As if I’m aware of my roller coaster of a nose but I’m fine with it. I’m not fine with it. In fact, if I had the money and was brave enough, the first thing I would do is get a new nose. A lot of other things are in line behind the rhinoplasty, some are things that can’t be fixed with surgery.
Deep internal self-esteem issues are the root of imposter syndrome and the biggest thing you can do for yourself if you struggle with this, is working on being a more confident person. Sometimes self-affirmations don’t really cut it. Looking in the mirror and telling myself what I believe to be lies honestly makes me feel worse. So what I’m working on right now is fixing my posture. Something that I care about is my longevity and my body. I know that having good posture will not only help me as I get older but it has also been shown that good posture gives a huge confidence boost. If I can’t trick my mind into believing good things about myself, I’ll make my body do the work.
However, if the classic affirmations and other confidence boosters work for you, use those methods as well.
Tune In To Irrational Thoughts
After having surpassed this horrible phase in our relationship, I sometimes look back at some of the things that I allowed to enter my mind and it’s kind of scary. I was being completely irrational and no one could stop me. I was really allowing myself to think “He must already be trying to figure out how to break it off with me. I bet he looks at flights back when I’m not around.” If I could go back in time and grab myself by the shoulders and scream “Bitch, he’s making you dinner! He sweeps the floor! He likes you! Can you just chill out and enjoy it?!”, I totally would.
Why I allowed myself to believe that my partner was now suddenly a two-faced jerk who was conspiring to leave me after a year of being happy together is something I can’t explain. It was easy for me to believe I’d choose to be with someone like that though. It was easy for me to believe I deserved that person.
If you can manage to pinpoint a crazy thought that has entered your mind and label it “crazy”, it will make a world of a difference. It isn’t easy though and sometimes you just have to let the thoughts enter your mind and hope that they leave just as quickly as they came in. I’ve managed to train myself to just say “no” to myself when I feel something useless and crazy coming in. It isn’t always enough but it does help immensely, to just stop it in its tracks before it plants a flag in my mind.
Talk to Someone
I’m not someone who touts the benefits of therapy. I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was a kid and no one has ever really stuck. What I do believe though is that just talking things out will always be helpful. If you have one good friend in your life, you have a built-in half therapist right there. Most of a therapist’s job is to just listen to you. Just ask someone to listen and that can be enough.
Sometimes you don’t even need to talk to anyone. You can just talk to yourself in the shower or write a letter. I’ve done all of these things and they’ve all helped me at some point.
Having that paranoid feeling of being “found out” is really awful and trust me, it’s worse worrying that you'll be found out by someone you deeply love. If you have a strong, patient partner and real bond, it is something that you can work through and come out the other side stronger than ever. It’s a true test of your relationship. If they can’t hang while you’re mentally spiraling, then it’s probably best to cut loose now.
